The Power of Seven: The First Alignment
by luxlow
Summary: Seven Children are born into the world. Each influenced by a different element of Earth. They must discover the past before the future will reveal itself. With the help of creatures of myth and legends, they must evade an unknown enemy aswell as the Govt.
1. Prologue

**P**rologue

Message in the water

The base of Adirondack Mountain, upstate New York

A snow covered south easterly blew through the almost empty forest. Smoke tumbled through the wind as a small camp fire bellowed it out. It was deathly quiet in the forest; no animal was making a single noise. Most animals had moved to a warmer climate or had started to hibernate. A thirty or so year old man stood hidden in the tree's surrounding the house where his target resided. The house was quite plain and was a common occurrence in those parts of the mountain. A wooden two storied cabin essentially. It had an overlooking balcony that surrounded the entire house. The man spied as a young boy came out onto the balcony. The boy had brown hair; short cut. He would be only seven or eight just by the look of him. He was sporting the current trend in pyjamas for his age; winter New York Jets uniform. He had a red robe surrounding his body, hugging him gently and protecting him the small amount of snow that was on the wind. The man smiled to himself. This was going to be easier than he thought.

The man was dressed in a black fighting suit, light but without any insulation. The man was freezing but that wasn't an excuse for his master. He had a knife on his side, hitched through his belt, which the man deemed quite absurd in a fighting suit. A small pistol in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other, the man started to climb a bent snow covered pine tree that over hanged the top of part of the balcony using his arms to squeeze the tree and his legs to push himself upwards. The man whispered a small phrase out. His body contracted and impossibly withdrew into itself. Where the man once stood was a small rep tipped scorpion. The scorpion scampered towards the boy in the pyjamas. "John! Come inside out of the cold!" A young woman scolded the boy as she walked out onto the balcony. She was a tall woman with red hair. "Yes Mummy" the little boy replied. The mother of the boy looked down and saw the disguised man/scorpion. She kicked the scorpion over the balcony and walked back inside, shutting the door behind her.

The scorpion flew over the balcony edge and slammed into a pine tree. The scorpion suddenly expanded back into the man. The man looked at the glass doors that the boy was behind being tucked into bed by his mother. The man scowled. This was only a minor setback he thought to himself. The man once again swung himself over the balcony's rail and instead of going to the little boy's room, started to make his way to the master bedroom. The glass doors barricading the two adult's bedroom were slightly ajar. The man placed his hand inside the small gap and pulled open the door. Nobody was in the room. He made his way to the bed and crouched down. He slipped underneath the bed and waited.

John was a simple boy. He had light brown hair with a tinge of a rusty red blended in it. He went for the New York Jets, his local team. He lived with his parents on Adirondack Mountain, which can be cold at times during winter. His mother pulled off his night time robe and helped him slide into his large sized bed. She sat next to him, on top of the plain blue covers. "John" she said. The boy looked up at his mother and smiled. He knew that she loved his smiles; she said they brought happiness to the world. "Which song shall we sing tonight?" she asked the boy tucked snugly in his bed. "I love you!" the boy squealed excitedly. The mother grinned at her son. "Very well, shall we begin?" And so mother and son sung a duet. As soon as they finished John yawned and drew closer to the blankets. His mother lent over and kissed him on his cheek. "Good night my beautiful" she whispered. "Good night mummy" he whispered back. His mother stood up and walked to the doorway and turned off the light. "Good night" she said once again and closed the door.

John's mother paced down the hallway and into the master bedroom. "He's asleep" the wife said to the husband. He grunted in response. The wife slumped onto the bed. "Do you ever regret gi-"She started to say when the husband cut her off. "No! We agreed about this before. We shall have no talk of this anymore." His voice was grafted and rough. His hair was the only thing that John's mother could see of him; a light brown colour. John's mother never knew why he changed so much after they got married. He used to be such a nice and loving man, but now? Vile and venom was unleashed ever time it opened. She sighed and laid her head down upon her pillow, facing the opposite direction, instead of looking at her husband as tears started to roll down her dimpled cheeks.

After two hours of lying on a hard wooden floor, the man was starting to get a back ache. As quietly as he could, he moved from under the bed. He removed the knife from his belt and raised it to the ceiling. He looked down at the man he was about to kill. He smiled and plunged the knife downwards. The knife descended and pierced the man in the throat. Blood gushed from the exposed freshly made wound. John's father woke up and saw the man standing over him. He tried to speak but found he could only gasp. He grabbed his wife's leg, jolting her awake. "What is it Howard?" She asked and turned around. She saw the man standing over her husband with a knife embedded in his throat. She was about to scream when the man pulled the knife out of her husband's throat and slashed sideways, cutting her throat. She fell to the ground, desperately grabbing at her throat, trying to stop the flow of blood. Her face turned pale and the blood rushed from it and onto the floor. The man picked up the dying woman's body and flung it at the glass door's. She sailed through them and toppled over the balcony, falling to the ground one story down. The man turned back to her husband and saw that he was indeed dead. He was about to say "Like taking candy from a baby" but stopped himself. He believed that it was too clichéd and over used. He tried to think of something original but couldn't. "Maybe later" he said instead. He tilted his head and thought. Yes maybe that. Maybe later.

John woke up to the sound of shattering glass and like any eight year old, was paralysed with fear. He stayed in his bed and listened hard. He couldn't hear anything. He heard his door open as the light hit him from the moonlight being reflected by the mirror coated hallway. A shadow fell upon his light frame. He turned his head and saw a man standing in the doorway. "Dad is that you?" John asked. The man started toward John when a powerful blue light erupted around John. The man was blasted backwards into the hallway. John stared in wonder. The blue light was some kind of shield that protected him. The man stood up and started to run down the hallway towards the stairs. The blue light dimmed and the room became lit by the moon once again. John threw off the blankets and started running out of his room. "MUMMY!" John screamed. He pelted down the hallway toward his parent's room when he slipped over. All over the floor was blood. John tried to get back up but fell once again. He slid across the wooden floorboards towards his parent's room. He pulled himself up on the door's frame and pushed the door forwards. 

Blood covered the floor and bed where a figure lay. John ran over to the figure in the bed and tried to wake the dead man. "Daddy wake up!" he cried. John suddenly jumped as the front door slammed. John raced to the window and watched as the man ran into the surrounding woods. He looked directly below at the mutilated body of his mother; her eye's twitching from side to side. "Mummy!" He screamed. John ran through the blood soaked bedroom and through the blood slick hallway to the stairs. He raced down the stairs, slamming into the wall where the "L" bend was. He threw open the front door and pelted toward the ground where his mother lay dying. He reached her body and collapsed onto it. "Mummy!" he screamed again. "John…" came a very faint whisper. John looked up and saw his mother looking directly at her son. "John…Run…" she rasped. Tears poured down from the young boy's cheeks. "But why Mummy?" he sobbed. John's mother's eye's widened as a shadow fell upon them. "Just…Run…" and flung herself forward with the last of her energy. The knife pierced straight into her heart. She tried to scream out but couldn't. John flew backwards onto his backside and watched as his mother was stabbed by the man. John screamed. "NO!" he said in a defiant voice. He looked at his mother once again and turned on his heel and started to run. The man pulled the knife out of John's mother's heart and wipes the blood onto his fighting suit. The man smiled. He always liked a chase. He started running after the young boy into the woods.

John ran his hardest, trying to stay well ahead and get away from the house. He stopped and put his bloodied hands on his knees, gasping for breath. A twig snapped to his left. John stopped breathing. He held his breathe for what seemed an eternity until he thought it would be safe to do so. John remembered reading in a book that nobody ever looks up. He started to climb a tree when something caught his leg. He was thrown into the air and fell back to the ground. Branches cut him as he fell. The man in the dark suit leaped down from his position on the tree. It seemed to John that this man must have read the same book. "Did you really think that climbing a tree would save you? It's one of the first lessons the master teaches us you stupid brat!" The man spat out. John whimpered as blood started to ooze out of the cuts on his arms. "Oh! Did baby get a boo-boo?" The man snicked. He started to pull the knife once again out of his fighting suit belt when the man was suddenly thrown sideways. A humungous "RAAAWWW!" exploded from behind where the man was once standing. In his place was a large brown bear, standing on its hind legs. John screamed and threw up his arm as a feeble attempt to protect himself from the bear. As suddenly as before, the blue light erupted around John. The bear's arm came down and bounced off the shield and pulling the bear, spinning out of control into a tree. The bear slammed into the tree, making a large crack in it doing so. John watched as the bear slid down the crumpled tree. He turned on his heel, and started to run away from the scene of devastation.

Darkness quickly devoured John as he ran blindly into the wood. Blood pulsating through his veins, John pushed his way through the shrubs and dodged the oncoming trees. An opening in the darkened forest loomed into view, moonlight spinning it in its silver silk. John burst through into the opening and hunched over, breathing heavily. A cave protruded from a rocky outcropping. John staggered inside the cave. The cave is in complete darkness. John shuffled forward and tripped on a rock. John fell to the ground and cried out in pain. Tears started to well up in his eyes. He pushed himself up onto his knees, and crawled to the side of the cave. John propped himself against the wall of the cave and let his head droop onto his chest. He was asleep within minutes.

The next morning, the sun was battering down on the mountain. The mountainside was doused with water. The rain clouds of the previous night that appeared and disappeared in what locals would soon describe as 'supernatural like' were gone. John woke to see sunlight streaming into the front portion of the cave. Pushing himself up, John walked outside. A slight breeze was in the air, blowing straight through his pyjamas. He hugged himself as a torrent of memories from the previous night washed over him. He started to cry again. John stood there crying for the next ten minutes. Wiping the tears from his face, he started towards the forest once again. Knowing he was lost, John tried to recall his flight the previous night. He stumbled through the forest. Something ahead catches John's eyes. A pool of water had collection under a tree. It was pulsating the same colour as the light from last night. John walked over to it and crouched down. He dipped his hand into the water and swirled the glowing substance. Nothing happened. He stood up again and put his hand on the trees trunk. He gasped and quickly retracted his hand as blood started to ooze out of the new wound the tree had made.

Blood ran off his palm and spilled on the water. The liquid stopped pulsating. The water started the churn and impossibly started to form a whirlpool. The whirlpool rose out of the small pool. John took a step back and fell over a tree root. John started to slide towards the whirlpool, being pulled by an unknown force. John screamed as the mass of water drew him closer. The water sucked john in. He thrashed in the vortex, being thrown from one side to another. A face erupted from the swirling mass. John stopped moving as he was drawn to the centre of the whirlpool.

"Kill the boy. He is your first priority. Then kill his parents." The voice boomed. The face melting away into the water and in its place was a strange looking mark. "W" John looked at the mark confused. He looked down and saw he was suspended in the middle of the whirlpool. John's eyes widened. John was thrown to the side by another unknown force, forcing him backing into the whirlpools outer wall. John tried to scream, but water flooded into his mouth.

Ten Kilometres from New York City

Matt Harding was moving his front lawn on this beautiful morning. Birds were chirping from their nests hidden in the trees, dogs happily wagging their tails while they went for a walk with their owners. Matt was a simple man, he had a footballers build even though he never played the sport. He was 36 years old, much younger than his older brother. His house was a two story white bricked, what he though was more appropriate, cottage. He was going down his lawn a third time when the swirling mass of water erupted in the sky. Matt stood there, his mouth wide open with surprise covering his face. In the sphere of water was a small figure thrashing about. The globe of water hovered for a moment then started to descend onto his front lawn. As soon as the water touched the grass, it fell away from the figure inside it. A young boy stood there in his New York Jets pyjamas. He recognized the face. It was his nephew.

"John!" he yelled and ran to his nephew. He crouched down and pulled the boy to his chest, using his well-toned arms. Matt realized that the boy wasn't wet. He pushed the boy away from him at arm's length. "John. What happened? Where are your parents?" he asked. The boy looked up from the ground and stared into his uncles bright blue eyes. He opened his mouth as to speak but nothing came from it. Matt looked at his nephews hands, they were covered in blood. "John. I need you to tell me. Where are your parents?" the boy opened his mouth again and a single word escaped before it closed again. "Gone…"


	2. Chapter One

_C_hapter 1

The storm front

Ten kilometres from New York

Life can sometimes come at you full force, while at other times as a gentle breeze. In a quiet neighbourhood, it refers to the second option. Most of the time. You can sometimes have that one day where something happens that can turn the abnormal into the normal. John Preset was a change most neighbours became used to. Even if he was a little strange at times. But the people in the community pitied the teenage boy. Both of his parents were killed in some strange accident the police said. All that he had left was his uncle, a well-known and liked man in the neighbourhood for his skills in fixing what seemed irreparable objects. All the ladies melted when he took his shirt off on hot summer's day when he was working out in the yard. You could see they hiding behind their curtains, watching the man work. It's like they had a sixth sense where they could predict what he was going to do.

John knew that his uncle wasn't in a relationship because he was concerned. Concerned about John. He knew it wasn't affection; it was more of a chore, something you don't want to do, but needs doing. It was like when John woke up in the dead of night screaming about nightmares. Nightmares where he would re-live the night he now calls "The Ripping." His parents ripped from this world, his life ripped from his world. John often compared himself to a piece of paper. Never to his uncle, but in his mind, swirling thoughts and trying to rearrange themselves into a whole. He was torn to shreds and now was missing something, like it was carried off in the wind. Something that he knew he could never find. He was more like his father, his uncle said. He had the same build, muscular but teetering on slim, how his brain solved puzzles brought before him. But his uncle said that he had his mother's heart; too big for his own chest. He had neither of his parents hair, where his father was black and his mother auburn, he was a deep brown like his uncle. If the neighbours didn't know any better, they could swear that John was his son.

Sixteen is always a precarious age for parents. It's usually when their children go slightly insane and start to rebel against the system. Teenagers are seriously misunderstood children. They're expected to act like adults but are treated like children. Sometimes John wondered about this. The world was always full of hypocritical people and thoughts such as these. He sighs and shakes his head. _Life is meant to be simple, but we as humanity seem to try and complicate it as much as possible._ John wasn't the smartest of teens, but he always managed to pass all his exams. _I wish there was a world that only I could see. Not something like Middle Earth or anything. Just a world full of endless possibilities. A world in plain view but just out of reach. Hah! What a cliché! _John stares up into the clouded sky. "A storm is coming. Something we have never seen before." John says aloud. Footsteps echoed in from inside his uncle's house. "How is it that you can guess the weather right all the time and the experts get it wrong so many times?" his uncle asked. John turned to his uncle and shrugged. "They're just not looking at the sky properly. See over there?" John points out over the horizon and directs his uncle's eyes to a cloud formation some two hundred kilometres away. "That storm system will bring utter chaos to our suburb. It's unnatural. It's like it is man-made. There is also something familiar about it." John dropped his hand and turned back to his uncle. "It reminds me of…" John's voice trailed off.

"It reminds you of the night your parents were killed. Doesn't it?" Matt asked. John turned away from his uncle and resumes examining the storm front. "Yes. It reminds me of it. How could I forget?" Matt walked up to John and placed one of his large hands on his nephew. "What do you think it means John? Your intuition is usually right about these things." Still observing the front John replied. "I don't know. We better get inside before it hits. This thing is moving faster than any storm I've ever seen." John's face slowly slipped into a frown. "You see something, don't you?" Matt demands. The boy turns his head and looks Matt straight in the eyes. "I believe that thing will bring change to our lives."

The storm blew in from the north. Wind howling and crashed against the windows' shutters. John sat on the lounge, watching the storm roll in, and eventually surrounding the community he lived in. John shivered as a cold chill ran down his spine. Lightning crackled overhead as thunder boomed and echoed through the empty street in front of his house. The usually clean streets became cluttered with garbage being flung around by the violent winds. John watched as their garbage bin rolled across the lawn. "You really should be in the basement if your predictions about this storm are true." Matt walked into the room looking stern at his nephew sitting in the chair. "Just because I said something, doesn't mean it's true, now does it?" John slid off the chair and started walking toward his uncle. "The weather is ever changing. You should know that. The weather doesn't do what I bid; I just look at it and…" John trailed off. He looked at the floor and concentrated. "John?" Matt asked. John's hand flew up and silently asked for silence. "What is it?" John looked up and swivelled his head toward the window. "There's no wind."

"That's absurd." Matt said but listened. No howling wind. No splatter as the rain hit the room. "What the hell is going on?" Both looked around the room if there could be something filtering out the sound, but there was none. "It could just be we are in the eye of the storm." Matt said. John stared at him. "It could be." John moves toward the hallway that leads into the kitchen. "It could just be that room." John said. His uncle looked sceptical. A small breeze of air wafted through the house, nothing like the gale force winds that were lashing the house a few seconds ago. John entered the kitchen and found the same strange results as in the living room. Complete silence. He could feel something that wasn't natural in the air, but he couldn't figure out what it meant. _Maybe the television has the solution._ John walked back down on the blood red carpet. He looked down at the carpet. It should have been bright blue. He put it in the back of his mind and continued down the hallway and picked up the television remote from the armrest of the chair. He clicked the television on. Static lines filled up the plasma screen. _Maybe World War Three has started and this is a new Korean system that stops people from going outside as well as forcing up a communications block. _"No. That seems to far-fetched." He whispered to himself. "What?" Matt asked. "Oh! Sorry! Thinking out loud again." Matt looked at his nephew and shook his head. _He used to be so happy._

John stepped out onto the back lawn and stared up at the sky. The turbulent grey world above him was unusually calm. "So, are we in the eye of the storm John?" Matt came out and stood next to his nephew again. "No. This is something different. It's like something is keeping the storm at bay." Matt looked down at his brother's son. "You think the government has cooked up some new experiment and this is the by-product?" his uncle asked. "No." he said simply. Lightning streamed across the sky. John watched its process. "It's going to hit the fields." John's face contorted in concentration. "Something is about to happen." John's eyes widened. "MOVE!" John slammed into his uncle as lightning crashed down and hit the place his uncle was standing. The two fell to the ground and started to roll down the small hill in their backyard. They crashed into the fence and waited, John lying on top of his uncle. "Are you ok?" he asked as he got off him. "Yeah, I guess. That was lucky you saw that otherwise I would have been fried." He laughed nervously. "Don't talk like that. Not today. Luck doesn't seem to be on our side." John looked back up to the sky. Matt moved toward the point to where the lightning hit the ground. "Hey John, shouldn't lightning scorch the ground right?" John turned and looked at his uncle. "Of course." he walked over to his uncle and looked at the ground. The ground was barren of burn marks. "That's impossible!" John exclaimed.

John walked to the back fence and unhinged it. "Where are you going?" Matt demanded. John rotated on his heel. "Something is happening at the soccer fields. I'm going to check it out." John replied. "Why does it have to be you?" Matt yelled. The young boy shrugged and smiled. "Fate will only give you what you can handle." He said wisely and took a step backwards into the large grassy lane that connected the soccer fields to the main road. He closed the gate and started walking up the ominous hill. Animals were calling out, some telling him to stay away as they guarded their families' home like sentries posted on a Keep in the middle ages. As the lightning streaked through the sky, it cast ghastly shadows of large, incredible monsters surrounding the teenager. John ignored it all and started running up the hill, reaching the crest and realising he was completely wet. His blue hooded jacket and sweat pants were covering in water. _But it isn't raining._ The world seemed to have turned on itself. The normal that once was had turned over and become a stranger in a town. John squinted and looked around him. Hanging loosely in the air were minute raindrops. His eye's widened and turned on the spot, looking at what could be described as a garden of suspended diamonds. He gasped. Somehow gravity had suddenly become equal to its opposite force. John tried jumping up on the spot and stayed floating in the air for a few seconds then fell back to the earth. _Not cancelled, just weakened. Someone has somehow lessened the power of gravity. But how and for what? _

John ran down the other side of the grassy hill and leaped over the logs that act as a boundary line from the outer part of the fields and the lane. The soccer fields are more like one field cut into two. Beyond them was a small overpriced petrol station, with a small alcove of trees barring it from the road it was so desperate to try and lure customers from. Thunder suddenly boomed overhead. John didn't remember seeing any lightning. He walked into the middle of the left field and looked up again, brushing his wet hair from his eyes. The sky had become even more turbulent, obviously not liking being held at bay. Suddenly a bolt a lightning dropped onto the field, ten meters from where John was standing. The force of the strike sent John flying backwards. He slid on the slick grass. He came to a stop three seconds later. John clutched his head and pushed himself up off the ground. He looked to the ground where the lightning hit. Standing there was a man in his late thirties. He smiled a crooked grin. "Why, this is better than I even thought possible. The boy who escaped me all those years ago, standing waiting for my return!" the man cackled. John looked at him with hatred. The man who killed his parents was standing in front of him.


End file.
